Bonds makes his committee picks

Sometimes it's been weeks before a Milwaukee School Board president settles on committee assignments. With Michael Bonds, the committees were picked just about as soon as he was elected in Tuesday night. He gave the assignments to a reporter first thing Wednesday morning.

The three new members of the board each fared well: Both Larry Miller and David Voeltner were given spots on the two most active committees, finance and innovation/school reform. Miller will chair the innovation committee. Annie Woodward was named to the finance committee and will chair the special education committee.

Bonds named himself chair of the finance committee, a position he held already, and kept Terry Falk as chair of the budget committee.

Every board member is either chair or vice-chair of a committee, Bonds said. He said he was reaching out to all members, including the three who voted for Tim Petersons for president.

But those three didn't fare as well as some other members. Petersons and Bruce Thompson are on the innovation committee, plus assignments to a couple committees that meet less frequently and are less central to the direction of the board. And Jeff Spence, the longest serving board member currently, is on neither of those two key committees. Spence was named vice-chair of special education and a member of the safety committee. Neither is a prestigious assignment.

The results of the voting at Tuesday night's meeting sounded likea tennis match -- 6-3, 6-3, 6-3, on votes to elect Bonds as president, to elect Peter Blewett as vice president and to keep the salary of board memebrs at $18,121 a year (as opposed to cutting it by more than half, defeated also by a 6-3 vote). In every case, it was Bonds, Blewett, Falk and the three new members in the majority and Petersons, Spence and Thompson in the minority.

Is that a sign of how board factions will shap up in the coming two years?

About Alan J. Borsuk

Alan Borsuk has been a reporter and editor for The Milwaukee Journal and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel since 1972. He has covered a variety of areas, including courts, environment, state and national politics, city government and, in recent years, education. He was editor of Wisconsin, The Milwaukee Journal Magazine, from 1986 to 1994, and has written numerous special projects and series.